[Podcast] Flipping the Script: Recruiting Strategies That Break the Rules with Tricia Tamkin & Jason Thibeault

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Show notes

What if the recruiting advice you’ve always followed is costing you placements instead of creating them? Host Kortney Harmon shares a standout session from the FDE+ Virtual Conference featuring Tricia Tamkin and Jason Thibeault of Moore eSSentials, who challenge conventional recruiting wisdom with practical, psychology-driven strategies that strengthen client and candidate relationships.

From business development conversations to candidate negotiations, Tricia and Jason reveal why the most effective recruiters often do the opposite of what everyone else is taught. They explore how to build trust through honesty, rethink exclusivity and guarantees, navigate HR partnerships more effectively, and handle objections, counteroffers, and difficult conversations with confidence. Every strategy is designed to move beyond scripted recruiting and create authentic conversations that lead to stronger long-term results.

Key Takeaways

• Use pattern-interrupts to earn attention and build credibility
• Build trust by leading with transparency instead of outdated recruiting tactics
• Turn difficult business development conversations into opportunities for deeper engagement
• Reframe guarantees, exclusivity, and counteroffers as competitive advantages
• Apply psychology and authenticity to create stronger client and candidate relationships

Learn how the best recruiters replace outdated scripts with conversations that build trust, strengthen relationships, and drive consistent revenue.

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Tricia Tamkin [00:00:00]:
So when someone says to you, like, you’re calling, you’re doing your BD, and they’re like, yeah, could you send me some information? You say no. There needs to be a healthy pause at the point that you say no, because they’re not expecting you to say no. They are expecting you to say, yes, I’ll send you this and this and this, or what would you like? They’re not expecting the no. And instantly The level of respect that the person’s gonna have for you is gonna go up.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:30]:
Hey guys, Kortney Harmon, host of FDE. In case you missed it, we recently hosted a live virtual event, and it was one for the books. We brought together some of the best thought leaders in the recruiting and staffing industry for 2 full days of real, no-fluff conversations and what’s actually working right now. From building trust with clients, to using AI without losing your edge, to growing revenue through relationships. The sessions were absolutely incredible, and we didn’t want you to miss out, so we turned every single session into its own episode. And over the coming weeks, we’re dropping them one by one right here. Each episode is a standalone session from the event, so whether you’re tuning in for the first time or you were there live and you want to revisit all of your favorites, there’s something for you. Stay tuned.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:21]:
You’re going to want to hear from every single one of our speakers. Trust me.

Tricia Tamkin [00:01:30]:
Enjoy. Welcome everybody. This is More Essentials bringing you Flipping Scripts, Counterintuitive Recruiting Strategies.

Jason Thibeault [00:01:39]:
Coming to you live on tape.

Tricia Tamkin [00:01:42]:
I’m going to let them go.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:43]:
I’m going to jump.

Tricia Tamkin [00:01:45]:
Thank you. Thank you for taking the time out to just watch us on a recording. And thank you to Crelate for having us. We are delighted to be here with you virtually.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:56]:
We’ve spent a lot of time practicing the exact speed to talk in case you listen to us on fast forward.

Tricia Tamkin [00:02:02]:
That would actually be a lot of fun to do, wouldn’t it?

Kortney Harmon [00:02:05]:
You got to talk a little bit slower, just a little bit. So this is our contact information. By now you’ve probably figured out that I am Jason.

Tricia Tamkin [00:02:12]:
And I am Tricia, and it is a pleasure to meet you. This is what we put out for our formal pictures. This is what we really look like, and we’re not the kind of trainers that are like, hey, we’re going to tell you our whole life story. It’s not why you’re here. You’re here to learn how to make your desk better. So we’re not going to do the introductions. You can learn a lot about us online or just reach out directly to either one of us. We are, though, going to tell you a little bit about what to expect in today’s session.

Tricia Tamkin [00:02:42]:
So Kortney is going to get you a recording. You will obviously— you’re watching this on a recording, so you clearly have it. Yes.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:50]:
The deck itself will be made available and it is just these slides. There’s not any sort of secret workbook or anything like that.

Tricia Tamkin [00:02:59]:
Yeah. Now, if you have questions, Jason and I love being with you live, but because we’re not here live with you, you can’t interrupt us to ask questions. What you can do though, is start an email as you’re watching. And if you have any questions or comments or anything that you’d like to share with us, Please don’t hesitate to do so. We love those kinds of emails. So please don’t hesitate to reach out. Let’s get one thing out of the way that I think is critically important given the name of this program is Flipping Scripts.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:31]:
Flipping Scripts is not flip recruiting. For those who don’t know what flip recruiting is, it’s basically calling into C-suite pretending you have an opening so that they will talk to you. And then finding out if they’re available. It’s a dishonest approach to a relationship. And there have been a bunch of rom-coms made about starting a relationship on a bad note like that. And in real life, it doesn’t work out happily.

Tricia Tamkin [00:03:57]:
It really doesn’t. Please, please don’t ever start a relationship, any kind, whether it’s your desk or a rom-com, don’t start it under false pretenses. The idea that you would try to demonstrate how skilled you are in that interview with someone in the C-suite, and then somehow be able to flip that into a BD call, like sometimes that kind of transition happens organically, and we’ll talk about that later on in today’s session. But don’t ever start a relationship lying to someone. I don’t think who any of you wanna be as people.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:36]:
Yeah.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:36]:
Yeah, it doesn’t bode well.

Tricia Tamkin [00:04:39]:
No, it doesn’t. So let’s talk about other things that don’t bode well, right? Have you ever heard this?

Kortney Harmon [00:04:45]:
Never disclose the name of your client until you fully interviewed the candidate, even if they’re pressing you like, hey, you know what? Like they might, you know, see an ad or, you know, get the call from you and just be like, yeah, well, I’m not talking to you until you tell me what the company is. Well, no, no, you’re just— hang up on them if you have to. We don’t agree with this.

Tricia Tamkin [00:05:04]:
We don’t agree with this. Do you know what? Even though you might be an exceptional recruiter, the candidate that you’re talking to has clearly had a lot of experience with less qualified recruiters, and they’re trying to be respectful of their own time. So how about instead we honor it? Okay. And we say, yeah, okay. I think that’s a terrific idea. I’d be happy to share the name of my client. Let’s get an NDA in place.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:32]:
We’ll certainly give you scripts for this, but I want you to think about the psychology a little bit of somebody asking you, hey, what’s the name of the client? And instead of saying no or giving the name of the client, what you’re able to do is say, yes, let me send an NDA over for you to sign. Try to tell me that they’re not going to be extra super curious now that they have this.

Tricia Tamkin [00:05:59]:
Right. Differentiates you as a recruiter, right? Because no one asks for a nondisclosure agreement, or at least very few people in our industry do this.

Kortney Harmon [00:06:07]:
And theoretically, it does kind of protect you because sometimes people go out and they, uh, find the name of the company. And what they try to do is see if they’ve got a friend working there, get in on their own and, oh wait, not if they got an NDA.

Tricia Tamkin [00:06:20]:
They can’t do it because by the very nature of nondisclosure, they wouldn’t be able to disclose their knowledge of the opening. Even to the company that has the opening. So, it does protect you, but it’s a wonderful script to use when you’re on the phone with a candidate that pushes you, right? So, we’ve got 2 different versions here. I tend to go with the first version myself, but I’m a little bit more flowery in my language. And so, I will say to somebody like, hey, John, I mean, I am not going to give you some kind of song and dance about all the jobs I have or why I can’t tell you. Of course I’ll tell you. How else are we going to do business together? I’m going to send you an NDA. Once we have that signed, both of us are going to feel comfortable.

Tricia Tamkin [00:07:05]:
I use DocuSign. What’s the best email address for me to send that to you? Now, I don’t give them an opportunity. Like, that’s one script start to finish. It’s not a conversation.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:18]:
Yeah. At any point that there is going on here, you’ll see with both of these, in fact, with a lot of our scripts, We’re starting from a very improv-based yes, and. Oh, you need to know the name of the client and your time is valuable. I respect that. I’ll send over an NDA, you sign it, and I’ll tell you who my client is. What’s the best email for me to use? It’s shorter, it’s to the point, and it’s just agreeing with what they’re saying. They want to know this. Why do they want to know this right now? They’re curious.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:47]:
Their time is valuable. They’ve had their time wasted by recruiters before. It doesn’t even matter. They’re asking for something and you can provide it, but by providing it, actually make the job seem more interesting.

Tricia Tamkin [00:08:00]:
It really does. Now, Jason and I are not attorneys, and nothing that we are sharing with you should be construed as legal advice. Please seek your own legal counsel before you give anybody anything to sign in a contractual form. I say that, and I mean, AI is your friend. We’re not looking for anything super fancy here. Get it approved by your attorney, but I mean, we’re talking a straight up standard nondisclosure agreement is going to serve your purpose here. So, when a candidate says to you, who’s your client? The answer is, yeah, I’ll tell you. First, sign the NDA.

Tricia Tamkin [00:08:38]:
All right. So, we’re not going to say no to candidates anymore. We’re going to say yes.

Kortney Harmon [00:08:42]:
Here’s something that I’m not going to say yes to though. Send me some information. This is a request for a pamphlet. Just give me your pamphlet. And how a lot of recruiters react to this is, okay, well, I’ll send you my case studies and my history of working in this industry, and I’ll send you everything that I have to tell you what a great recruiter I am. And maybe I’ve got a document that’s got testimonials, and you’re giving it to somebody who’s telling you to go away.

Tricia Tamkin [00:09:06]:
Right. Maybe if they’re a really good recruiter, they don’t do that. And instead they say something like, I would be happy to send you information. What do you want? Right. And instead of trying to pile it on, They try to narrow it down and see it and try to dig in there a little bit.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:23]:
Yeah. And then they have a panic if the person says, well, what I really want is this and this, and they don’t have half of it.

Tricia Tamkin [00:09:29]:
Right. So when someone says to you, like, you’re calling, you’re doing your BD, and they’re like, yeah, could you send me some information? You say no. You didn’t lose the audio. That was only like 3 seconds. Okay. But there needs to be a healthy pause at the point that you say no. Because they’re not expecting you to say no. They are expecting you to say, yes, I’ll send you this and this and this, or what would you like? They’re not expecting the no.

Tricia Tamkin [00:09:58]:
And instantly the level of respect that the person’s gonna have for you is gonna go up. You’re gonna hold the boundary, right? So as soon as they say, send me more information, you say no with a pause. No, we don’t send out information. I am an exceptional recruiter in the engineering space, and our clients look at a lot of options, and they choose us for good reason. Like, if you want something specific, I could provide it. Like, is that what you want, or were you just trying to get me off the phone? It’s a nice way to go and say, first pattern interrupt, no, I’m not going to do that. Then you can put a little bit of a pitch in there. We’re exceptional.

Tricia Tamkin [00:10:45]:
People choose us because of that. What is it that you need? Or are you just trying to throw my pamphlet in the garbage? Like, what’s happening? You need this information in order to figure out if the call is possible to move forward.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:03]:
Yeah, I think this is one of these areas where an element of this got us thinking at one point, and it’s the idea of Were you just trying to get me off the phone? Tricia, I now have a technique where we will start calls with, this is a cold call and you can hang up if you want. It’s disarming and honest, and it takes the power of the hangup away. But sometimes the hangup’s rude.

Tricia Tamkin [00:11:27]:
Yeah, sometimes it is. So, have you ever heard of this happening? And I mean, be honest, if you’ve been a recruiter for more than like 30 minutes, You have heard somebody do this before. We get hung up on, like, we’re gonna get hung up on, and it has nothing to do with you as a person or you as a recruiter. It has everything to do with the person you’re calling having a bad day. That’s what happens when they hang up on you. And common advice for this is to ignore the fact that you’ve been hung up on, to call the person back instantly and be like, Stupid. Like, oh, I think we might have been disconnected.

Kortney Harmon [00:12:07]:
Yeah, we’re like 30 years into cell phones being pretty commonplace. They don’t drop that often anymore. And it just seems like a snotty thing to say.

Tricia Tamkin [00:12:18]:
It’s really like passive-aggressive combative, right? It is.

Kortney Harmon [00:12:22]:
You must have gotten disconnected.

Tricia Tamkin [00:12:25]:
Yeah, you didn’t get disconnected. And everybody involved knows that you did not get disconnected.

Kortney Harmon [00:12:31]:
First of all, it is going— like, if somebody called you up after you hung up on them and said that, are you now more or less willing to do business with them?

Tricia Tamkin [00:12:41]:
Less willing. Oh my God. I would be so irritated if somebody—

Kortney Harmon [00:12:46]:
And you can’t take a hint.

Tricia Tamkin [00:12:48]:
Clearly you can’t read the room, right? We’re never doing business together. Everybody knows this right now. Remember, When they hang up on you, if they’re mean to you, it has nothing to do with you and it has everything to do with them and the kind of day that they’re having in that very moment that you call them. Okay? They’re having a bad day. Sometimes what happens is we call someone and they’re having such a bad day that instead of just hanging up on us, They give us a string of expletives, call us nasty names, and then they hang up on us, right? Like, it doesn’t happen often, but it absolutely happens. And if it hasn’t happened to you, get ready because it will. Okay, we are interrupting people and they sometimes react poorly. If that happens to you, ring the bell and celebrate.

Tricia Tamkin [00:13:50]:
Because you can only use this next technique when it happens to you. You can’t make this happen. It’s a response or a reaction to somebody being very rude to you.

Kortney Harmon [00:14:03]:
And this is the handwritten card, and this is one Tricia business in the past.

Tricia Tamkin [00:14:07]:
Yes, it does.

Kortney Harmon [00:14:08]:
This seems silly now. In it, we’re in the extreme example. If somebody has been fully profane, But understand it doesn’t just work for that. Like if they simply hung up on you, they are probably feeling a little bit, a couple days go by, the mail arrives, and they’re gonna feel a little bit like a jerk. And that’s the idea here is to not call them a jerk, but to let them come to the guilty sense of that on their own.

Tricia Tamkin [00:14:37]:
And then by doing so, you shift the power dynamic. Right? Now, they’re coming back to you a little bit hat in hand, which means that you’re in a much better position to negotiate, to interact, to move the deal forward, right? Whether this is a candidate or a client. I did close a deal on this, and it does work. I want to tell you, think, all of us have been the jerk sometimes. All of us have been having a bad day. And snapped at a person that didn’t deserve it. Every one of us at some point has done that. And I want you to put yourself in that moment.

Tricia Tamkin [00:15:17]:
And then I want you to imagine receiving a handwritten card from somebody that says, I’ve been thinking about you since you were really mean to me. And I’m sure you were having a bad day and I hope your day got better. Right? You’d feel like a jerk and you’d contact that person back. because the guilt would make you do it. And we are not above guilting somebody who was mean to you in order to move the deal forward. Okay. It works.

Kortney Harmon [00:15:46]:
Now, there are people in the universe who have a greater tendency to come off like this, who might be more likely to hang up on you, tell you to F off, or in some other way be rude. Those are the clients to get. Number one, they scare off most other recruiters. Ooh, this was challenging. Number 2, once you’ve satisfied them, they become your biggest champion. No, this has to be done exactly the way Jason does it because this is how I’m used to it. These people are not used to being satisfied, and if you can satisfy them, you have a client for life. Even if they change companies, now you’ve got 2 clients for life.

Tricia Tamkin [00:16:29]:
Right. Now, if they actually used profanity, Just as a side note, you don’t use the asterisk when you write the letter to them. Write out whatever they actually said to you, no matter how profane it is. That’s part of what drives the guilt. And we just didn’t want to write the word out on the screen while we’re training you.

Kortney Harmon [00:16:50]:
We’re civilized like that.

Tricia Tamkin [00:16:52]:
We try to be civilized, right? All right, let’s go to the next one. Does this ever happen to you? Like, you are doing your business development, you are in sales mode, you are dialing for dollars, you get someone, you start talking to them, and they say to you, oh yeah, I’m so glad you called. Like, I’m looking for a recruiter for me, right? That’s how it shows up. And you’re like, I’m doing business development. I don’t need another candidate. I don’t actually find jobs for people. I find people for jobs, but sure, Mr. Hiring Manager, even though I was calling you for business development, I’d be happy to change everything around what we’re talking about so that I can accommodate you.

Kortney Harmon [00:17:43]:
And I’ll tell you, because I’ve actually seen a version of this fumbled even harder than that. I was sitting with a recruiter. They were doing their dialing, actually trying to find a tax manager. When they got to a tax manager, that tax manager was fairly senior and said, oh, thank goodness. I needed a recruiter. I actually need to hire 3 people. And what he said instead was, oh, well, this isn’t going to work out. I was calling to recruit you.

Kortney Harmon [00:18:13]:
He gave up like 1 bird in the bush and 3 birds in the bush all at the same time. And you can have both.

Tricia Tamkin [00:18:22]:
You can. So, you’ve got to set it up right though, right? Like, I know I kind of went off on my tangent of, oh, this is awful. Do you really want me to do this? Because that’s what it feels like for us as recruiters. But as soon as you have the indication from the person that wants to be your candidate, as long as we set it up right, you’ll be able to bring it back to BD. OK, so once you feel it or they say it to you directly, switch, but call it out directly and completely. Like, Bill, I’m sensing that you are less than satisfied in your current role. And you know what? That’s way more important than the purpose of my call. So why don’t we shift gears? What’s going on? Now, what’s important here is if you don’t say, that’s more important than the purpose of my call, you have to drop that phraseology in there to set yourself up later to actually do even more effective business development.

Tricia Tamkin [00:19:29]:
Okay?

Kortney Harmon [00:19:30]:
Yeah. Normally we’re just shifting gears at this point, but we got a little need for a callback here so that we can call it back.

Tricia Tamkin [00:19:37]:
Right. Once you hand it to them on that beautiful silver platter and say, oh, you are way more important than the purpose of my call, what’s going on? You’re going to do a really good recruiting call, fully interview the person, right? Like, just as you normally would, center them, ask them the important questions, dig in deeper, be the recruiter you are. Okay.

Kortney Harmon [00:20:01]:
And then once you have all that information, Thanks, Bill, or whatever their name is. I think I have a good sense of the type of role you’re most interested in. Should a position like this come across my desk, would you be all right if I called and told you about it? Of course, they’re gonna say yes. Excellent. So can we go back to the original purpose of my call? That’s why you needed it earlier.

Tricia Tamkin [00:20:25]:
That’s why you have to drop the phraseology at the beginning, because otherwise you don’t have the transition back to it at the end, right? Now, this isn’t flip marketing, okay? This is centering the person that you’re talking to and letting them drive the conversation without giving up your purpose. When you made the call to the person, you were looking at doing business with that company. That was the purpose of your call.

Kortney Harmon [00:20:56]:
And when you ended that call, you were still Looking to do business with that company. You took care of their needs without diverting from yours or approaching it dishonestly.

Tricia Tamkin [00:21:06]:
Right. So we want to be straightforward, keep the candidate and/or client centered, and still not drop the ball, right? Don’t drop the ball on this. Set it up so that you can revisit it later. Now, have you ever heard this?

Kortney Harmon [00:21:23]:
We need to avoid human resources at all costs. HR? More like human refuse. Am I right? Like, I have heard so many versions of this in my time training recruiters, and it’s silly. Even 20 years ago, they were a major player in talent, and we are putting ourselves in a position where we are against our natural ally, the other person who is responsible internally This could be their internal talent people. This could be HR. This could be HR working with their internal talent people. But why would we make them an adversary?

Tricia Tamkin [00:22:01]:
We never should make them an adversary. In fact, we’ll make the argument that you should bring them into the deal. Okay? Like Jason said, I mean, it’s been decades. I get it. If you’ve been a recruiter for a long time, I’ve been a recruiter for 30 years next year will be 30 years. That’s a long time. And you know what? When I started, HR did not have a seat at the grown-up table. They did benefits administration.

Tricia Tamkin [00:22:31]:
They handled maybe some minor training or making sure that reviews got done. That was the role of HR. And they weren’t able to sit at that grown-up table, but they do now. They do now. They’re involved in the strategic direction of organizations. They’re involved in succession planning. Let’s be fair. We charge a lot of money for our recruiting services, right? And if we’re gonna charge a lot of money for our recruiting services, we have to expect that the companies that we’re charging are gonna try and bring those services in-house and save money.

Tricia Tamkin [00:23:08]:
And so they hire internal TA to do it. That is a good business decision on their part. And we all also know that internal TA and HR Can’t do what all of us can do. They can’t. They’re just not capable and qualified. But why are we fighting with them about it? They still need us. And so we should still serve them. Like, is it harder with the game of telephone if you have to deal with HR or TA and you’re not direct to your hiring manager? Of course it is.

Tricia Tamkin [00:23:39]:
There’s a whole nother layer of possible confusion.

Kortney Harmon [00:23:42]:
Yeah.

Tricia Tamkin [00:23:43]:
But don’t be adversarial with them. Bring them into the deal, right? Ask, ask your hiring manager, like, what’s the role of HR? Do we need to get them involved? Do you want to make an introduction for me? Right? When you get on the phone with HR, tell them directly that you are different from other recruiters. Like, you might be aware, Cindy, that a lot of my peers avoid people in your role. They won’t work with companies where they have to interact directly with HR. They think that you get in the way, that you guys are causing a lot of problems, that you’re injecting yourself into situations you don’t belong in. And I disagree. As a recruiter, the resources I deal with are human. You have hires that you need to make, and my job is to make you look good and lift some of that load.

Tricia Tamkin [00:24:47]:
So, why don’t we start off with your expectations of me as a recruiter, and we can see if it makes sense for us to keep talking.

Kortney Harmon [00:24:56]:
Now, I certainly can say it is okay to drop the second sentence. Yeah, I like caramel. It is, you know, Tricia did a little knife twisting kind of motion. But it’s also like saying to somebody, hey, you might be aware that most of my friends avoid people like you constantly. They think that you smell funny, you don’t have good hygiene, that you’re kind of funny looking. And you put yourself in situations where you don’t belong. But I disagree. Like, so I’m just saying you can drop the whole little turn the knife line and It’ll still deliver just fine.

Tricia Tamkin [00:25:31]:
It will deliver. Oh, it will deliver just fine, right? But it’s a little fun, right? And they have heard it, right? Anytime you can say something out loud that someone’s thinking before they say it out loud, your credibility goes through the roof. So always try to predict what other people are thinking and say it.

Kortney Harmon [00:25:50]:
Plus, it’s your chance to actually insult HR to their face.

Tricia Tamkin [00:25:54]:
And be nice about it, right? There’s something a little fun about that. All right. So I mentioned this already, but you can also do it on the phone with your hiring manager. Like, how is HR perceived? What is their role? Is there a benefit to bringing them in? Can you introduce me? I think I did that whole script just like a couple slides too early. You’re ready.

Kortney Harmon [00:26:15]:
Sure.

Tricia Tamkin [00:26:16]:
All right. So be nicer to HR. When they change jobs, they’ll take you with them. When they are your advocate, if we start to see a dip in the economy, What’s gonna happen is first, companies are gonna have to cut the number of vendors that they work with. And don’t think for a minute that HR isn’t part of who’s making those decisions. You want them to like you, and I would recommend that you go out of your way to take steps in order to encourage them to like you, right?

Kortney Harmon [00:26:46]:
They should like you more than other recruiters, right?

Tricia Tamkin [00:26:49]:
They sure should. All right, let’s do another one.

Kortney Harmon [00:26:52]:
I imagine that you have heard how important it is to negotiate exclusives. They should be relying on you to fill this role because what if they try to fill it internally or anything else, then you don’t get your money. What if they hire another recruiter? In fact, you should have retained exclusive C-suite roles. That is the filet mignon of recruiting and nothing else will do. But it’s also a little bit of nonsense. There’s not enough filet to go around. And this isn’t actually in your client’s best interest.

Tricia Tamkin [00:27:26]:
It really isn’t. Like, think about it. Try to put yourself in their shoes, right? Let’s say it’s the CEO of a startup company and he needs somebody in a go-to-market role. Like, is it really in his best interest to only work with one recruiter? I mean, we can all make the argument for why it is, but does that mean that he should reject the employee referral? Like, should he say, no, you know what? I made a decision to work with this recruiter. So this trusted employee that I have that knows somebody that they think is really good. Nope. As the CEO, I’m going to abide by my contract to this vendor that I’ve never done business with before that demanded exclusivity. And instead I’m going to reject the employee referral.

Tricia Tamkin [00:28:15]:
Like, that would just be stupid.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:17]:
And you made it nice. Just an employee referral. It could be their own referral. What if their son comes along and says, you know what, Dad, I think I do want to take that vice presidential role we talked about? Well, then who cares what your contract says?

Tricia Tamkin [00:28:31]:
It’s silly of us. Like, we’re coming from fear when we force exclusivity, right? Do I want you to have exclusivity? Yes, I do want you to have exclusivity. But I want you to earn it. I want it to be a situation where the client says, you know what, I’m only going to work with Jason. When I only work with Jason, everything goes swimmingly. If they make that decision, wonderful. But for us to make that decision and then to impose it on a potential client, or worse, an existing client.

Kortney Harmon [00:29:13]:
Right.

Tricia Tamkin [00:29:13]:
Right? It doesn’t make any sense for us to push something that is so clearly one-sided only in our direction.

Kortney Harmon [00:29:21]:
It’s like getting on a dating app and saying, I’m not going to date anyone that’s on the dating apps. What are you doing here? Who do you think you’re going to find?

Tricia Tamkin [00:29:29]:
It’s really, it’s really kind of—

Kortney Harmon [00:29:32]:
No, it’s only got to be one-sided.

Tricia Tamkin [00:29:34]:
It’s backwards, right? Like you hear us talk about centering the other person. That’s how you build trust. It’s how you build loyalty is by centering them. And when you go in and say, I only do this with exclusivity, you’re not centering them. You’re saying, I’m scared that I’m not going to be able to find the right person. And so I want to limit you as much as I possibly can to increase the likelihood of me making a fee. Like, that is so self-centered.

Kortney Harmon [00:30:04]:
And it adds Wait, it adds another thing that they have to agree to. It adds another thing that they might have to put to legal. It’s another reason for them to consider someone else.

Tricia Tamkin [00:30:15]:
Right. So don’t do that. Right. Here’s what you say instead. You know what, John? I mean, I know a lot of recruiters push for exclusivity, but not us. You have a job to fill. And I mean, of course I would like to think that it would be my candidate that you ultimately choose. But I mean, let’s be fair.

Tricia Tamkin [00:30:36]:
The important thing is filling the role. I want you to use all available resources to find the person you need. You don’t know me yet. Soon you’ll probably learn that it’s easier to only work with me, but that’ll be your choice and one that you should make after we’ve worked together. So I’m just not really about arranged marriages.

Kortney Harmon [00:30:58]:
No, I will. Drop a little insider secret for you. We are big on engaged fees. So if you want to start working with us, it takes a few thousand dollars upfront. It’s skin in the game money. This means that if they do go ahead and they hire that nepotism son hire that I talked about earlier, you get paid, you know, $3,000, $5,000, whatever.

Tricia Tamkin [00:31:21]:
$10,000, $15,000, whatever the engagement fee is.

Kortney Harmon [00:31:24]:
But even if it’s $2,000, Like, a small number like that means they’re significantly less likely to even talk to another recruiter.

Tricia Tamkin [00:31:33]:
Yeah, isn’t that the truth? All right, so don’t push for exclusivity. Use your lack of need for exclusivity as competitive differentiation. Oh, I went too fast there. All right, have you ever heard this one before? Like, the shorter the guarantee, the better. Like, I’m Super, super guilty of this.

Kortney Harmon [00:31:54]:
No guarantee. You made the decision. That’s our standard. Yeah.

Tricia Tamkin [00:31:58]:
I mean, I’ve told clients for decades that like, hey, my payment terms are net 30. If the person doesn’t last until the invoice is due, don’t pay it. Like, I’m not going to hold you to that if they don’t make it in the first 30 days. But—

Kortney Harmon [00:32:13]:
And if you don’t think they’re going to make it first 90 days or something, don’t hire them.

Tricia Tamkin [00:32:17]:
Right. Like, so. When someone first asks you for a guarantee, ask them to explain it to you, like what it is they’re looking for, or ask them instantly, well, do you have an attrition problem? Right? Like, let’s change again the power dynamic with them. Do you have— oh, you need a 90-day guarantee? Like, are people leaving once they start? That feels like a bigger problem that maybe we haven’t addressed yet.

Kortney Harmon [00:32:44]:
You haven’t mentioned this before. What’s going on? And now, instead of putting you on the spot to come up with a better guarantee, they’re on the spot to explain why their hiring is a problem. Typically, the answer you’ll get there is going to be something closer to, oh no, no, no, we make fine hiring decisions and people only rarely leave. But like one time there was this recruiter. You want to hear that story? Like, if they want to complain about past recruiters, let them.

Tricia Tamkin [00:33:12]:
Always let them.

Kortney Harmon [00:33:13]:
They are telling you how to serve them.

Tricia Tamkin [00:33:15]:
Yes, they are. I like to say to somebody when they are pushing for a guarantee, like, I don’t really understand. Like, I didn’t decide that the role needed to be filled. I didn’t write the description. I don’t make the hiring decision. I don’t show up and perform on the job. I don’t manage the person that shows up and performs on the job. What are you actually asking me to guarantee? That you make a good hiring decision? Like, how would I do that?

Kortney Harmon [00:33:45]:
Right?

Tricia Tamkin [00:33:46]:
Like, I like to throw the logic at them, but you don’t have to do what I did for the vast majority of my career, which is reject the guarantee. That’s what I’ve always done is reject it and just say, no, I’m not guaranteeing your ability to make a good hiring decision. I’m not. That isn’t actually the best way to do it in the long run. There’s a better way, right? Ooh, instead of rejecting it, why don’t we give it to them as an enormous guarantee?

Kortney Harmon [00:34:20]:
Right. So we can, you know, have it be a marketing spend in terms of what if what happens 5 years from now is they come to you. They say something like, hey, that product manager, they left and you had a guarantee. And I feel like I still have 10% of that left.

Tricia Tamkin [00:34:41]:
So wait, does that mean that 5 years later, a client that you’ve already serviced that you’re not working with regularly comes to you and says, hey, I’m supposed to get a 10% discount off of my fee. Like that’s not 10% of 25. That’s like $3,000 off of $30,000, right? Like, so—

Kortney Harmon [00:35:02]:
It’s been 5 years. It’s probably $32,000.

Tricia Tamkin [00:35:05]:
Right.

Kortney Harmon [00:35:05]:
Right.

Kortney Harmon [00:35:05]:
Because the fee goes up because pay goes up because it’s 5 years later. So effectively you’re about getting the same fee, except what you didn’t have to do was repeatedly call the client to try to get them to be on the same board to be like, okay, well, I guess I am finally replacing Mary now that she’s left. Well, okay. Well, can I get a discount since we’ve worked together in the past? Because they’re going to ask anyway, most of the time.

Tricia Tamkin [00:35:32]:
They do. And I mean, if you think about it, like, think about what the longest guarantee is that you’ve ever offered. Like, we’ve talked about zero guarantee, net 30, 5 years, right? But standard tends to be about 90 days, right?

Kortney Harmon [00:35:47]:
Sometimes you’ll hear the full year.

Tricia Tamkin [00:35:49]:
But I like a full year guarantee. I mean, a full year, here’s how a full year guarantee would play out. Let’s say that the job for easy math was a $60,000 fee. Okay. They have to pay the fee for this type of guarantee. I would give them net 10. Okay. 10 days after the close, they have to pay the full $60,000.

Tricia Tamkin [00:36:12]:
Now, if the person leaves in the first month, you have literally only earned $5,000 of that fee based on this prorated schedule.

Kortney Harmon [00:36:23]:
Okay.

Tricia Tamkin [00:36:24]:
So you would have to replace the person, but you get to keep $5,000 of it. That’s how it works each month. If it’s 10 months in, then you replace the person and they get a $10,000 discount for the last 2 months.

Kortney Harmon [00:36:40]:
Now it is important. She was just saying replace the person. It’s like a replacement credit. So they get, you know, $5,000 more off the shorter the amount of time the person’s stays there. They don’t get anything off at year 2 in that case. But why don’t we give a really long guarantee?

Tricia Tamkin [00:36:56]:
Yeah, so here’s how you can structure a 5-year.

Kortney Harmon [00:36:59]:
In fact, I might at the end of this reword it to a 10-year since we’re talking about long guarantees. So let me take a moment to explain our 10-year no-fault replacement guarantee. If at any point in the first year your new employee leaves or is let go for any reason, We’ll replace that person applying a 50% credit from the last hire. In year 2, it becomes a 40%. In year 3, it’s 30%. In year 4, it’s 20%. And from years 5 through 10, you still get a 10% credit. You won’t find any other recruiter that stands by their work for a 10-year guarantee.

Tricia Tamkin [00:37:39]:
Gives me goosebumps, right? Because, because for real, Why don’t we take the thing that causes us so much pain in our industry, flip it upside down and make it competitive differentiation, make it a sales asset instead of negotiating pain. Right?

Kortney Harmon [00:37:59]:
Right. People tend to like, you know, feel like this hurts the most when somebody leaves around year 3. So using Tricia’s previous $30,000 fee. That becomes $21,000.

Tricia Tamkin [00:38:10]:
That they still would have to pay, right?

Kortney Harmon [00:38:14]:
They come directly back to you 3 years later without you spending 3 years of marketing, right? Just with you having a guarantee. And some of them are going to forget the guarantee. That’s just normal in business. I’ve probably got a million that I’ve never mailed in.

Tricia Tamkin [00:38:30]:
How about it? All right, let’s do another one. Hey, do you know this? Statistic, right? I feel like even though you’re not in the room with us, I can feel all of you shaking your head. Yes.

Kortney Harmon [00:38:41]:
You’ve shared this statistic. 80%.

Tricia Tamkin [00:38:44]:
80% of people who accept a counteroffer are no longer employed within 6 months. So that is such nonsense, guys. And it’s fun. Like when AI came out, Jason, went down this rabbit hole and did all sorts of research to try and figure it out.

Kortney Harmon [00:39:06]:
Yes. Well, what I wanted to do was get to the original source of this statistic. And so I sent AI research modes and multiple models onto this task. And initially, if you don’t do deep research, what you get is search firms that are sharing this information on their website. If it does deep research and it takes some time, What you find is that this has been only really shared and verified by search firms, that nobody actually has good statistics on who accepts counteroffers, how long they stay there, because we don’t track anything like that. Like, you aren’t actually tracking the people who accept a counter. Like, it doesn’t work that way. It never has.

Kortney Harmon [00:39:47]:
And when they’ve studied it, the numbers are way less than this. So instead of having real numbers, For like 30 years, recruiters have just given made-up numbers.

Tricia Tamkin [00:39:57]:
So stop making up numbers. And hey, you weren’t doing anything wrong. You thought they were real numbers. I thought they were real numbers. They’re not. They’re made-up numbers. And the problem is every single one of our candidates knows someone, either they themselves got a counteroffer that they took, or they know someone who got a counteroffer that was accepted. And it was a great move.

Tricia Tamkin [00:40:20]:
So, as soon as you start telling the candidate, no, no, no, no, no, don’t take a counteroffer. This is a terrible idea. It feels self-serving to the candidate because it is, right? So, we’re gonna do the exact opposite. We’re gonna lean into the counteroffer, okay? When you say to a candidate, let’s talk counteroffers. Like, what do you think? Are they gonna make you a counteroffer? And the candidate says to you, no, no, no, I’d never take a counteroffer. I know what a bad idea that is.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:49]:
Mm-hmm.

Tricia Tamkin [00:40:52]:
I want you to disagree with them in that moment while you’re prepping for a counteroffer. I want you to disagree. I want you to say to them, wow, you know what, Billy? Like, I would be remiss as your advisor if I didn’t point out to you that this is the single most amount of leverage that you are ever going to have. In any negotiation with this company is right now. Like, I think we should explore it. I’d like you to still take the offer from my client, and I’m expecting that you will, but wow, I don’t want to miss this opportunity. What if they can give you everything that you want?

Kortney Harmon [00:41:37]:
So in this case, what we have is somebody that is probably trying to tell you what they think you want to hear. And instead, you know, I want them to daydream with you. Isn’t there something they could offer you which would cause you to change your mind? What if it was like double your current salary and you work from home and a $100,000 retention bonus and you don’t have to report to that boss you hate anymore, right? Would you accept that counteroffer?

Tricia Tamkin [00:42:05]:
You want to make it big, okay? You want to set the bar super Super high. Okay. We’re anchoring the candidate, like—

Kortney Harmon [00:42:15]:
To a counteroffer that’s never gonna happen.

Tricia Tamkin [00:42:17]:
It’s never gonna happen, right? So, that’s your job. Your job is to push them to dream a little bit with you and to say, well, I mean, yeah, if they doubled my salary, no, I still don’t think I would stay. Well, I mean, what if they quadrupled your salary? Well, you’re making $100,000 right now. What if they bumped your salary to $400,000. Are you really telling me you wouldn’t stay for a year? I mean, that’s life-changing money. And you’ll be able to get the candidate to a number or to circumstances where they would accept it. The more far-fetched those circumstances are, the more secure your deal is. Okay.

Kortney Harmon [00:42:58]:
First of all, hearing them, the harder it is for them to agree. If they’re like, well, yeah, I mean, I guess I would accept a $10,000 counteroffer. Like, well, that’s nothing. You’re going to get that. Like, we need to set the standard high. And by getting somebody to daydream with us, I like to think of this as the lottery discussion. What would you do if you won Powerball and you had just hundreds of millions of dollars? And I don’t actually want you to answer that question right now because I can’t hear you. What I want you to do is think about who you’ve had that kind of discussion with, and it’s probably somebody close to you.

Kortney Harmon [00:43:32]:
You don’t have that discussion with Strangers. And so now what we’re doing is we’re friending ourselves. We’re putting ourselves into a discussion that they would typically have with somebody closer to them.

Tricia Tamkin [00:43:45]:
Right. So your goal in this situation is to prep your candidate to the point that when the— their boss says, oh no, Billy, you’re leaving, what could we do to keep you here? I want your candidate to look their boss dead in the eye and say, I’ve given this a lot of thought. If you double my salary, give me a hybrid work environment where I’m only in the office 2 days a week, and I would prefer to not report to you, I’d like to report to your boss. Do you think a counteroffer is going to be made? It’s not. Like, we can completely preclude the opportunity of a counteroffer while aligning with our candidate, making our candidate feel like we do have their best interests at heart, that we are helping them with this. They feel more loyal, they’re more aligned with us, and the company can’t come up with the counteroffer that your candidate is asking for. Right.

Kortney Harmon [00:44:53]:
Even if your candidate doesn’t have the guts, they’re still gonna have very high standards that your competitive offers aren’t gonna be able to meet.

Tricia Tamkin [00:45:04]:
Right. So that brings us just kind of to our summary. Okay. These are the scripts that we want you to flip. Yeah, I’ll tell you my client name, sign an NDA. You need information?

Kortney Harmon [00:45:18]:
No, I’m not going to create a pamphlet just for you to throw away.

Tricia Tamkin [00:45:23]:
You were rude to me, but I’d still like to do business with you. I’m thinking about you and I hope your day got better.

Kortney Harmon [00:45:30]:
Hey, can you just get me out of here instead of me doing business with you?

Tricia Tamkin [00:45:34]:
Right. I think that embracing human resources and having you involved in the deal makes everything go smoother for me. I like human resources.

Kortney Harmon [00:45:46]:
I think exclusivity is an unnecessary piece of friction that we add to a deal when instead it would be faster and already filled if we weren’t still arguing about it.

Tricia Tamkin [00:45:56]:
Oh, you want a guarantee? Yeah, we completely stand behind our work. We can talk about guarantees that range from a year to 5 years, sometimes even 10 years. First, tell me why it’s important, right?

Kortney Harmon [00:46:09]:
Instead of trying to block somebody’s kung fu of counteroffers, We accept it and pull them so hard in that direction that it doesn’t make sense for them to take a counteroffer.

Tricia Tamkin [00:46:21]:
Right. So, when you flip scripts like this, this is advanced recruiting, guys. This is like a PhD in recruiting. It isn’t just basic training. You have to understand psychology. You have to understand how to center the person that you’re talking to and to do so in a way that makes it so that you can Still move your deal forward. Ego has no place on our desks. Okay.

Tricia Tamkin [00:46:47]:
All right. Now, if you were just here to learn, now is your time to leave. Go get back on your desk, make some calls, try to put these techniques into play, send us emails and let us know how it goes for you, what you liked, what you didn’t like, what you agree with, what blew your mind. We love those emails.

Kortney Harmon [00:47:06]:
And try not to think about whatever it is that we’re going to talk about next.

Tricia Tamkin [00:47:11]:
Yeah, thanks. And I hope you enjoyed the entire Creelay presentation. Make sure you send an email to Kortney and just let her know how amazing it is, how she puts together these summits and brings people like Jason and I into the room for you guys. It’s a big undertaking. Make sure you give her some gratitude for it. Thanks, Kortney. It’s been our pleasure.

Kortney Harmon [00:47:34]:
Yes, definitely tell Kortney how awesome she is for bringing us in.

Tricia Tamkin [00:47:38]:
Right? Okay, guys, we’ll talk soon.

Kortney Harmon [00:47:41]:
Bye now.

Tricia Tamkin [00:47:41]:
Bye-bye.

Kortney Harmon [00:47:42]:
Oh, guys, I didn’t pay them to say anything like that at the end. I thank you so much for, uh, humoring the way that went today. I thought it was great. That’s a wrap on this episode. If this one got you thinking, just wait until you hear what’s coming next. We’re dropping a new session from the FDE+ Q1 event every week, each one a different speaker, a different topic, and a different angle on what really takes to build relationship-driven revenue in this industry right now. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the next one. We’ll see you there.